Don't Use My Toothpaste ;

Without doubt, there are big problems that afflict relationships like infidelity, abuse, and addiction. But it may be the unimportant problems that are destructive to love most. The dirty socks on the floor. The way our partner chews so loudly. He can’t use the toothpaste as you do.

Soon after the wedding, the process begins. That adorable, ‘perfect’ person starts to irritate you. You discover your spouse doesn't know how to fold towels and doesn't seem interested in learning. He knows how to open drawers but not how to close them. Even the way they load the dishwasher is irritating. He will never clean the way you want him to.

But you're certain that with a little instruction, the person you married will change. Several months later, your spouse still isn't responding to your improvement program. By the end of your first year, your frustration level has sky-rocketed and you resort to arguments, tears, temper tantrums, and threats.

Irritations are inevitable in relationships. It's just not possible to find another human being whose every habit, andpreference match perfectly with ours. The fundamental challenge in a relationship is ‘figuring out how to negotiate and live with our partner's irritants in a way that doesn't alienate them and keeps the two of us connected’. When the partners are fighting it is mostly not over big issues but over differences in style.

In every relationship, one partner is messier than the other. Eighty percent of couples living together say differences over mess and disorganization cause tension in their relationship.

We each have different values andways of looking at the world, andwe want different things from each other. Such differences derive from our genetically influenced temperaments, our belief systems, andexperiences growing up in our family of origin.

People suppress their irritating behaviors early in the dating process but allow them to emerge once they're in a committed relationship. When you are dating, you're careful. Once there's a commitment, you feel entitled to relax.

The first exposure to irritating behaviors produces a small negative reaction, but each subsequent contact increases sensitivity. The first wet towel on the bathroom floor is mildly irritating; the hundredth can unleash a hypersensitive reaction.

If your partner has a habit that he or she is not aware of but drives you up a wall like keeping the bathroom door open, walking around in underwear or the way he uses the toothpaste, bring it up in a loving way. Maybe it simply never occurred to your partner that it bothers you.

If your partner can't seem to change his ways, reframe the issue in your own mind. Instead of focusing on how inadequately he cleans, remind yourself how much you appreciate his contribution to household chores. Changing your perspective can not only resolve the irritating issue but it can mend the whole relationship. If we want to stay in the relationship, something needs to change.

The ability to eliminate relationship irritants lies within each of us. They may sabotage good relationships or not. It all depends on how we interpret the problem.

If your partner is doing something that's bothering you, there's a right way and a wrong way to bring it up. The right way to do it is gently, in such a way that the other person can't possibly doubt your love, what relationship psychologist John Gottman calls "softened startup."

We must not let our spouse think that we are controlling them. Feeling controlled is one of the most common, 40 percent, relationship complaints. We don't like to be told what to do in a relationship.

All relationship irritants can lead partners to criticize each other. But criticism is a dangerous irritant in itself. Criticism makes people feel attacked and unloved. In reacting to annoyances, says John Gottman, men are more likely to shut down and refuse to engage. But women voice their complaints in criticism. They are apt to tell a partner exactly what is wrong with him and how he needs to change. But such an approach seldom brings about the desired goal; men feel attacked, defensive, unable to listen with an open mind. Conversations that begin with criticism are likely to end in anger.